I've been a bit loathe to use the ports because, I do not always find information on configuration information on the pkg as to what options it may be configured with, preferring to compile them myself from source code. Is there away around this this blackout window.

Occasionally I have come across a port that doesn't have a config dialog, but still accepts switches for configuration options at maketime.

True, there may still be such ports that were designed before the 'make config' system was put into use (I think it started in FreeBSD 5?). I am ashamed to admit that one of my ports still used said old system until very recently.